it's judgment day for georgia's ruling party challenged by popularity of a united opposition as voters have their say and parliamentary elections. brain moves in appeal to their prison sentences overturned in a case that's been slammed asked politically motivated. hundreds of people staged demo's at a u.s. military base on the japanese island of okinawa as washington again problems up its presence in the answer percent.

hello and welcome to our tea where we are broadcasting to live on screen and on line twenty four hour state seven days a week on karen. well georgia's ruling party and a united opposition alliance are going head to head as the nation votes for its next parliament president saakashvili his party is desperate to hold onto its majority in the chamber after its popularity plummeted in the wake of a prison abuse scandal. skiis in the georgian capital. voting continues into what promises to be a crucial election for georgia and its mordant a history this election will show whether the people are happy with the current political regime with business really and his united national movement party but in a one more wider picture the party which wins this election will be able to then appoint a prime minister and when the constitutional amendments take place next year when the states down which will allow other prime minister to have just about the same powers as the president had then this party would be able to appoint the prime

minister and basically have the georgia's future in its hands fourteen parties are running in this election but the main battle will be between the united national movement party the ruling party of the president saakashvili and the party georgian dream run by a tycoon whose fortune makes up almost half of the country's national budget mr ivanishvili according to all the surveys the ruling party is in the slight lead with about forty percent but the party georgian dream still has a very good chance of winning this election on saturday we saw nearly the largest political rally in the history of modern day georgia with over one hundred thousand people in the streets basically voicing their discontent against the current political regime my colleague got the skin off found out what georgian image is really like now at the moment. brand new boutiques banks restaurants and a western style face with in general is definitely something georgian authorities can be proud of glass walls in police stations and many other new government

buildings aimed at creating an image of a completely transparent state system but is it merely an image. recent footage of alleged torture and sexual abuse of inmates in prisons has shocked the georgian public many are comparing it to keep this from guantanamo except it contains suspected terrorists and these are ordinary georgian inmates. you are the former senior staff member of one of the prison. school leaks the footage claims president saakashvili is perfectly aware of the torture iraq thousands took to the streets in protest demanding the arrest and prosecution of all those responsible while a burning broom has become a symbol of the opposition since this is what the authorities are accused of using for torture in some of the videos base will not be tolerated. opposition activists dutch is a good year claims over six hundred people have been tortured in prisons nationwide

many died he says. our goal is to make sure the election is without provocations and the people who committed these crimes are punished especially mycar saakashvili dutchy was arrested by traffic police the day after we met officially for resisting orders he was given ten days in prison meanwhile to see fees president saakashvili was busy sacking the police chief arresting all the officers shown in the video footage and substituting the staff in all prisons with police but both his ruling bodies readings still dropped when you are twenty percent. of a large portion of the government supporters used to come from civil servants now many of them are resigning in a crossing over to the opposition with an average salary around four hundred u.s. dollars per month poverty is another issue sparking public disapproval in shiny new buildings that here in georgia a change is going to happen first the question is how bad the georgians want them

to go to school of the. highest court has rejected appeals by nine medics who were handed prison terms for their legit role in pro-democracy uprising they were at an orchestra of criticism from the un and outrage from international rights groups but many calling the verdict politically motivated the medics treated demonstrators wounded in clashes with police brutally crackdown on peaceful rallies last year a military court earlier found the defendant is guilty of attempting to overthrow the government one of the medics well sir five years and the rest between a month and three years behind bars reaction now from any political activist saeed shihab be joining us from london where he's living in exile. thank you so much for joining us today saeed now these are medics are for. i'm a group of twenty who were sentenced last year but knowing there's were acquitted in jail why have the rest not been acquitted as well what's the difference well i

don't think that is much difference between any member of the group and there because i think the only difference is that the that energy wants to show that they had a clearance at the beginning of the truth that these are they carry out the known facts so just to quit all of the rules that would make them innocent is something count of that education of the gene so i think it's just because it eases up political decision you're doing well in order and they want to sort out the problem i think they are they are saying that we are here we didn't even want what sentences may be plus as if that's the situation nobody can change our mind when that is the international human rights organizations for political activists now archie has closely been following developments in the country and we've seen dozens of protesters killed by security forces in bahrain since february of last year has

anyone been held accountable for the deaths. so far none of the significant figures who may have given or does all or at getting the actual physical torture thrown within the members of their own family has been brought to justice for the. human rights violations are continuing only last night. a great amount of good we can guess is where sprayed on the people and also showed guns where it was use extensively so these days ago a young boy of seventeen years over there on the hudson nam out was killed by a shotgun he was by the police so this is on the date when one of the other jeems of the shows was appointed a member of the who says that the. because of the you want rights council so i think this is the that the people are continually business.

you want to impose are continuing and also the killing why did it g.m. has not stopped. it seems to me that if you is not going to hold anyone accountable for those for torture or quarter. we didn't get any because it depends on killing people it's things that it would only mean if it did arise is buddies now while the brain has been slammed for human rights violations by some international n.g.o.s most western governments remain oblivious to the oppression there why is that. what is sitting i don't understand how good the governments have such double standards for say that i have to say is that and the ok what events until now i am waiting to hear one word of kinda mission of those rules that i was never there only think the best i would that he had thrown

a british or american over zero is that. we. are old. but we are concerned that we are concerned as if nothing more than that sorry to say and i'm certain trust you but very briefly i do want to get this question and you have probably prominent opposition activists not be over a job but he is another who has been jailed for protest related charges how transparent do you think his case is and can he and others like him hope for an early release i don't think anyone in the hopes that this is a political decision because the foremost important. activists are in jail including the bit here and the village of curious has also joined again and i don't think there is going to be any release of them listed as a political one and that's what it will is not there yet because that agency is that it is supported is being supported by the you all is and you ok and that is why. it's very good. really. all right live from london that was bar political

activist saeed sheikh probably thank you for your time. here to get more on the ongoing protests in bahrain at r.t. dot com or you can read up on the background of this in the tory it's case of jailed magic's. also online the pope's former butler tarnished the reputation of the vatican by leaking private matters awaits his fate he's accused of violating the deal. the u.s. has deployed six all spring hybrid planes to its base on japan southern island of okinawa with six more aircraft due to be transferred there japanese police had to forcibly remove hundreds of people who had gathered outside the american base to protest the deployment of the charts demonstrators say the aircraft safety record is not up to standard following a series of crashes and the parents were also calling for the marine base which is in a densely populated area to be shut down piece campaigner and human rights activist

ryan dawson says their calls are unlikely to be met. these bases cause a lot of problems not only for safety very noisy issues and a lot of conflicts with the servicemen themselves in the local areas but the u.s. isn't going to budge in that position they've been dragging their feet now for six years so i think it's highly unlikely bases will close nobody wants any of their bases there but for them to be bringing these in the twenty two osprey from boeing is very dangerous a crash just recently is june in florida that could fall on someone's head but that's not an exaggeration of these thing they're a hybrid helicopter airplane and they haven't got the bugs out of them you know they always say they're building up a presence because of north korea and maybe part of that is true but i think a lot of it's about uncertainty in china. well it's like world war two never ended and there's still bases in germany as well there are unnecessary the residents

don't want them but this is us geopolitics they are never somewhere temporarily once the us comes somewhere with the one exception is saudi arabia and they put a base they never ever leave. coming up later in the program illegal durch switch. so soon riots appeal against their jail term is adjourned after one of the punk band members fires her lawyer plus. there have been a number of cases where the government has tried to shut down court hearings these proposals if they are passed will sweep away hundreds of years to produce legal tradition we will get how the british government is considering new legislation which critics say is simply to hide its involvement and wrongdoings such as person torture that's after a short break here on our team. i

never thought i could earn a living this way. natalee a shell of oil as a lawyer she tests small arms so does not almost a machine build implement a lot of the source talent of all the weapons she's fired over the past twelve years. i got so used to it sometimes my friends ask me to join them at the rifle range and i say no way i'm so tired of shooting. the planet's history goes from making firearms doing world war two to ballistic missiles from nuclear submarines during the cold war the bulk of the soviet industry was moved here in the 1940's to flee the virus and germans so if you were also became the heart of soviet military production closed off to foreigners for hoffa's century it thrived on the lesser moods of the soviet military when the u.s.s.r. collapsed but life here was shaken to the core but some adapted to better than

others. this is the year old truck factory brushes the number one truck made for girls with a look at how well the workplace is organized everything's done to make sure the workers don't worry too. there was production is booming the factory has largely managed to get on to civil rails these giants are sold around the globe here based on brand new would be the way to be delivered to a client's seventy trucks like this one roll up the drugs conveyor belt every day look at this things that absolutely huge. well i'm no formula one pilot but hopefully if i can get up that. i can go for a test drive. oh that was fun to get one of these to trouble to walk every morning what with the cost of about forty thousand dollars i should start saving money.

welcome back to our teeth coming to you live from moscow karen tara while an appeal by the russian punk band pussy riot against their prison term has been adjourned after one of the group members told the court she had fired her lawyer they were jailed for two years in august for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they staged an infamous centime stunt at russia's main cathedral are too strong thomas has the details. court has wrapped up for the day and this is coming after you got that you know some would say of it's the oldest of the three women requested a new lawyer and the court has granted that request which means she needs time to prepare the appropriate documents in the papers in order to let this specific

hearing go through a new court date has been set for that hearing that is october tenth now again today many people here to see inside the courtroom it was packed in fact it spilled out into the corridors of the courtroom so that people could watch on television to see what was happening inside the courtroom outside the courthouse itself and many more people both pro and against a pussy riot coming to let their voices be heard showing that this case specifically still has wait a minute still resonates inside russia a little bit about the details on february twenty first pussy riot performed what they called a punk prayer at christ the savior cathedral in central moscow they were arrested in march a trial during the summer and then in mid august they were sentenced to two years and this is part of the appeals process today which has now been delayed until october tenth well certainly this incident has sparked a lot of international attention support for the group of media frenzy as well as

calls for leniency for the group major artists like bjork madonna and the red hot chili peppers have called for the government to be lenient as well as other western governments have said that they need to find a punishment that is more fitting to the crime of what they say is more fitting to the crime now prime minister medvedev has said that he doesn't see any reason for this group to spend any more time in jail that the time that they have served is already punishment enough for the crime president putin has said that he is completely staying out of this he does not want to interfere at all there's also been many copycat incidents around russia as well as in other countries as well in ukraine one woman took a chainsaw to a crucifix and destroyed it in a cologne germany in a cathedral there three people got up in the middle of the service and had a protest there they were arrested at their trial starts this week as well in russia this country is very divided about the subject as seen here today this country is a very religious country and many people were offended by what happened in the

country's main church. all right artie has news just in a moscow court has imposed a ban on the anti islam movie the end its sense of muslims that's the controversial u.s. made film blamed for sparking huge protests across the middle east last month and now we will bring you more information on this as soon as we get it. all right let's check now and some other news from around the world. heavy gunfire followed by several explosions has been reported on the outskirts of damascus syrian government troops clashed with rebels meanwhile the fighting continues at the country's border with turkey where at least twelve people have been killed this comes a day after syrian state t.v. claimed government forces have carried out a successful operation in the country's commercial aleppo. eurozone unemployment has had a record high of eleven point four percent that's according to the statistics agency that means over eighteen million people affected me out of work with the

number of jobless young a cause of alarm for european governments meanwhile protests against raging unemployment on growing spending cuts continue throughout europe with frustration turning to violent clashes with police. and buddhist temples and forty homes have been torched by muslims in bangladesh with dozens injured in the rats it happened after a photo of a burnt koran appeared on a teenager's facebook page the boy says the photo appeared on his account of the state his parents have been arrested and investigation launched. well the issue of religious conflict and freedom of speech is also a hot topic at r.t. dot com we're asking for your opinions in our web poll right now a majority say that nothing should stifle free speech slightly less of you thinks there should be a compromise between religion and freedom of expression eleven percent believe that the country's culture is what matters and just about the same say that religious

beliefs. are to dot com is where you can go to cast your vote. plans for a new justice and security bill in the u.k. and spark criticism that the country quote expanded system of secret courts its claim the move could help the government dodge allegations of complicity in the abuse of detainees abroad or to slow us. looks into how westminster is trying to take political advantage of the proposed legislation. nipping charges of complicity in the bud that's what the u.k. government admits it's trying to do with its plans for secret courts ministers have argued that more secret courts the need is to protect sensitive information and the workings of security agencies but in documents seen by the guardian newspaper the government acknowledges it would benefit politically able to defend itself from allegations like complicity and torture without the details ever becoming public

there have been a number of cases where the government has the government's lawyers have tried to shut down court hearings and have things heard in private and it has transpired through the judicial process that what they were really trying to cover out was a lot of government embarrassment about wrongdoing our main would be media agencies these proposals if their past will sweep away hundreds of years of the british legal tradition the proposals follow a law suit brought by binyam mohamed who was held in guantanamo and all good the british government was complicit in his rendition and torture mohammed won the case to the d.p. merely a sion of the government and now they're trying to change the law so the government often a party in these matters would decide if a case should be heard in secret it wouldn't just be kept from the public if the proposals go ahead neither the defendant nor the defendants legal team would be able to hear the evidence against them human rights lawyers are concerned it would

trample on the principle of a fair trial in effect a large chunk and presumably a very important chunk of the case you're trying to run about half your client you're going to be. there we're going to behind closed doors closed sessions you are not allowed access to so if there is an inherent on furnace. and there is a huge scope for. future miscarriages of justice evidence m i five and m i six knew that britons were being tortured in guantanamo and my six helping to deliver libyan dissidents into the hands of gadhafi secret police critics say that's the kind of information the bill is designed to suppress so begg who was held here alleges tortured in fact graham and guantanamo has a special interest in making sure there are no more secrets theory i remember the discussions that were taking place at the time it was very odd former guantanamo prisoners on one side sixteen of us and

a whole bunch of government officials on the other side having a discussion negotiating a settlement we would have been able to do that basically we would have been able to certainly try to take the government to court but we would have to do it with our hands tied behind their back even the government admits that black and asian muslim men will be disproportionately affected as it's they who are most often involved in cases where sensitive information is being considered and still the bill rolls on the plans for so-called secret justice are proven so deeply controversial that they've been delayed but like a bad penny they keep turning up and every time they do it gives human rights groups another opportunity to rail against proposed legislation they say goes against one of the founding principles of the british legal system not only that justice is done but that it seemed to be done laura smith r.t. london. time now to take a visit to the business desk with the train so they had

a face book as a mascot the mentor of mine is here well that's right mark zuckerberg is indeed in moscow and many speculate as to the exact reason why he has come here some say it's for personal interviews with russian talent and programmers for maybe a bit of a brain drain and facebook others say it's to establish a special research center of folks work here in russia but of course there are many grounds to each reason. there are few names better known in the world of social media and technology than mark zuckerberg and he is today indeed in the russian capital he is meeting with prime minister dmitri medvedev he's supposed to be going to the moscow state university to talk to students and he might spend some time behind me at a grouping of programmers called digital october's facebook is not in fact the number one social network in russia it's another social network called the contact

which means in contact and in russian and he may well be here i'm sure part of the reason for his visit is to try and boost facebook's p.r. in russia and its market share but there has been another idea floated by the russian media quoting russian computer companies who say that he may well in fact be here to try and headhunt talented russians programmers and they're not happy about that prospect they point to the one nine hundred ninety eight when russia was in a financial crisis and microsoft received similar accusations of poaching talented russian programmers and taking them back to the us whatever the real reason that he was here he still managed to find time to pose for photos in red square in his trademark red hoodie and to go into mcdonald's for a bite to eat so it seems that although the main message is technology it's not all

about business. now let's go down to the markets now and in europe everything is looking for the positive this hour with xstrata gaining more than two percent in london on news that it has basically confirmed the merger from glencore the trading company which has been improved by one percent of the year the company as i said is up two percent this hour as focus on spain's spain's their levels will increase for the next year despite the state's efforts to cut spending the nation's debt is expected to reach eighty. five percent of g.d.p. this year and ninety one to said in two thousand and thirteen out this is a free time increase since two thousand and eight and experts say it's just a matter of time before spain asks for a bailout now in currencies the euro is actually gaining this out against the dollar just a bit while the russian ruble is mixed it's a losing value against the euro and gaining versus the dollar. that's all we have

time for this i'll be back in fifty five minutes i'm all right we look forward to thank you dmitri shortly we reveal the extreme conditions of violence and the injustice in nigeria's oil fields and a special report. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing more gratian through the day. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so horror lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize

everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. question is that so much of a given to each musician the power of the final touches of friends in the arab spring or the arab winter where does this great liberation logic stand in the arab middle east and where is it going are the forces of reaction. to the mission free education free speech zones for judges free range and breach risk free speech to tide free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media and on the r.t.e. dot com you. move

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